Bird Brains 3D (Sonic) clone just for fun, more experimenting with Rb+

[Clint Thompson]

Usually don't share things I experiment with publicly but this one sucked me in and has progressed quickly into a crude playable state after just a few days. Also want to continue to prove that these dusty part the woods still serve a purpose.

 

What started off mentally as a possible platformy-type of idea quickly turned into a Sonic-like 3D coin collecting game crude experimentation example of sorts. 2-days in with most of the time going toward creating the graphics(animation)/music/sfx and a 3rd of the time correcting my own mistakes after a million (literally) trial and errors. As with everything, it's been a learning process. While rough in it's early form, anything that has me coming back to it after a few days is promising since I tend to get bored quickly.

 

A few still shots to give a quick initial idea of what's going on - they could be golden glazed donuts but they're just fat coins, ideally they would be animated spinning:

 

 

 A slightly more refined platform to run amok but super crude with Bird Brains himself:

 

As it stands, you can move the character in all directions, jump (really shitty currently), collect coins (hit detection is too high), coins are counted/displayed and the platform shifts to imitate movement until I can wrap my head around how to create run paths efficiently so that it moves up/down and possibly curves left/right accordingly and maybe into/out of pipes. Holding B currently acts as run or SonicSpin but I've yet to create the animation and sound for him swirling in the air, which will eventually be a requirement for collecting the coins I think unless you have a row of like 20 coins you spin down on to collect. Holding A jumps while holding up increases the speed a little bit with the idea of there being objects that pop-up that will also increase the speed by a notch or two, or obstacles to slow you down that should be avoided or cause you to lose your coins.

 

Just winging it...

 

 

It really can't be made into anything on a deep Sonic level gameplay-wise but it could easily be a level-by-level, coin collecting/obstacle avoiding high-score type of game. Maybe Level 1 collect x amount of coins and as long as you continue to retain x amount by the end of the level, you'll go onto the next round, so on and so on... Eventually will include some binaries here as I get on with it.  All ears and a big beak for suggestions, if you have any.

[Welshworrier]

Nice, suggest maybe looking at rainbow walker on the 8 bit for some ideas of gameplay options you could use.

[Cyprian]

@Clint Thompson that looks cool. Keep finger crossed.

I guess it could be easily also adopted to the Lynx

[neo_rg]

would make a good endless runner type game.

[pacman000]

Almost looks like Sonic X-Treme. 

 

I've hoped someone would develop a 3D platformer for the Jag for years, so I hope something comes of this.

[agradeneu]

Nice idea! Drawing distance needs to be improved I think. It feels like 10 feet away from the player sprite. It should somewhat match the horizon (of the backdrop)

Edited September 11, 2020 by agradeneu

[agradeneu]

5 minutes ago, pacman000 said:

Almost looks like Sonic X-Treme. 

 

I've hoped someone would develop a 3D platformer for the Jag for years, so I hope something comes of this.

I dont think he is aiming for a 3D platfomer, more for a pseudo 3D mini game like in Sonic 2/3? For a 3D plaformer you will need to write a 3D engine...?

[Clint Thompson]

7 hours ago, agradeneu said:

Nice idea! Drawing distance needs to be improved I think. It feels like 10 feet away from the player sprite. It should somewhat match the horizon (of the backdrop)

You mean the platform feels like 10 feet away? He's just a big bird but yeah, that does need to be figured out, good point. Probably draw the background closer altogether and level it out.

7 hours ago, agradeneu said:

I dont think he is aiming for a 3D platfomer, more for a pseudo 3D mini game like in Sonic 2/3? For a 3D plaformer you will need to write a 3D engine...?

7 hours ago, pacman000 said:

Almost looks like Sonic X-Treme. 

 

I've hoped someone would develop a 3D platformer for the Jag for years, so I hope something comes of this.

Right, just a faux 3D runner of sorts with some variety that's mostly a straight shot but hoping to add some twists and turns in there. This came together by accident while messing around so I'm not sure what it'll turn into.

[KidGameR186496]

12 hours ago, Welshworrier said:

Nice, suggest maybe looking at rainbow walker on the 8 bit for some ideas of gameplay options you could use.

That's a good source of inspiration! I would also suggest the bonus stages of Sonic 3D Blast on Genesis as well. Taz-Mania on SNES would be another decent source of inspiration....

Edited September 12, 2020 by KidGameR186496

[Clint Thompson]

@agradeneu oh, just realized what you meant now (I think), you're referring to the distance of the platform here?

 

If so then yeah, the idea is to extend it out much further out into the horizon, just haven't gotten there yet and in which case, it is 10 ft away.

 

 

[Clint Thompson]

1 hour ago, KidGameR186496 said:

I would also suggest the bonus stages of Sonic 3D Blast on Genesis as well.

That's not the one with the sphere/globe is it, or am I thinking of something else?

[pacman000]

I think the globe was Sonic 3.

 

And a 3D runner’s cool too.

Edited September 12, 2020 by pacman000

[KidGameR186496]

2 hours ago, Clint Thompson said:

That's not the one with the sphere/globe is it, or am I thinking of something else?

 

45 minutes ago, pacman000 said:

I think the globe was Sonic 3.

 

And a 3D runner’s cool too.

As Pacman000 said, Sonic 3 & Knuckles was the one with the spherical bonus stages. The ones in the Genesis version of Sonic 3D Blast are reminiscent of your demo

[KidGameR186496]

You could also take this as a founding basis...

 

[sirlynxalot]

Skyroads is another psuedo 3d game with platforms in the sky

 

 

Edited September 12, 2020 by sirlynxalot

[agradeneu]

15 hours ago, sirlynxalot said:

Skyroads is another psuedo 3d game with platforms in the sky

 

 

Hm, there are polygons and I guess some 3D calculations

[sirlynxalot]

My bad, always thought it was some sort of deluxe raycasting.

[flux]

A guy who worked on Sonic 3D Blast on Genesis has a video where he showed how he did some of the tricks used on the Sonic 3d Blast special stage for Genesis. There might be something you wanna use on there like how to do the panels to jump over or something like that.

 

Edited October 17, 2020 by flux